Pesachim

AND THEY ATE THE FALLEN FRUIT FROM BENEATH [THE TREE] ON THE SABBATH, AND THEY GAVE PE'AH1 FROM VEGETABLES; AND THE SAGES FORBADE THEM. GEMARA. Our Rabbis taught: Six things King Hezekiah did; in three they [the Sages] agreed with him, and in three they did not agree with him — He dragged his father's bones [corpse] on a rope bier,2 and they agreed with him; he crushed the brazen serpent,3 and they agreed with him; [and] he hid the book of remedies,4 and they agreed with him. And in three they did not agree with him: He cut [the gold off] the doors of the Temple5 and sent them to the King of Assyria,6 and they did not agree with him; and he closed up the waters of Upper Gihon,7 and they did not agree with him;8 and he intercalated [the month of] Nisan in Nisan,9 and they did not agree with him. THEY GRAFTED PALM TREES ALL DAY. How did they do it? — Said Rab Judah: They brought a fresh myrtle, the juice of bay-fruit and barley flour which had been kept10 in a vessel less than forty days,11 and boiled them together and injected [the concoction] into the heart of the palm tree; and every [tree] which stands within four cubits of this one, if that is not treated likewise immediately withers. R. Aha the son of Raba said: A male branch was grafted on to a female [palm tree].12 THEY ‘WRAPPED UP’ THE SHEMA’. What did they do? — Rab Judah said, They recited, Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One13 and did not make a pause.14 Raba said: They did make a pause, but [the meaning is] that they said [And these words, which I command thee] this day shall be upon thy heart,15 which implies, this day [shall they be] upon thy heart, but to-morrow [they shall] not [be] upon thy heart. Our Rabbis taught: How did they ‘wrap up’ the shema’? They recited ‘Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One’ and they did not make a pause: this is R. Meir's view. R. Judah said: They did make a pause, but they did not recite, ‘Blessed be the name of His glorious Kingdom for ever and ever.’16 And what is the reason that we do recite it? — Even as R. Simeon b. Lakish expounded. For R. Simeon b. Lakish said: And Jacob called unto his sons, and said: Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you [that which shall befall you in the end of days].17 Jacob wished to reveal to his sons the ‘end of the days’,18 whereupon the Shechinah departed from him. Said he, ‘Perhaps, Heaven forfend! there is one unfit among my children,19 like Abraham, from whom there issued Ishmael, or like my father Isaac, from whom there issued Esau.’ [But] his sons answered him, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One:20 just as there is only One in thy heart, so is there in our heart only One.’ In that moment our father Jacob opened [his mouth] and exclaimed, ‘Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.’ Said the Rabbis, How shall we act? Shall we recite it, — but our Teacher Moses did not say it. Shall we not say it — but Jacob said it! [Hence] they enacted that it should be recited quietly. R. Isaac said, The School of R. Ammi said: This is to be compared to a king's daughter who smelled a spicy pudding.21 If she reveals [her desire], she suffers disgrace;22 if she does not reveal it, she suffers pain.23 So her servants began bringing it to her in secret. R. Abbahu said: They [the Sages] enacted that this should be recited aloud, on account of the resentment of heretics.24 But in Nehardea, where there are no heretics so far, they recite it quietly. Our Rabbis taught: Six things the inhabitants of Jericho did, three with the consent of the Sages, and three without the consent of the Sages. And these were with the consent of the Sages: They grafted palm trees all day [of the fourteenth], they ‘wrapped up’ the shema’, and they harvested before the ‘omer.25 And these were without the consent of the Sages: They stacked [the corn] before the ‘omer,26 and they made breaches in their gardens and orchards to permit the poor to eat the fallen fruit in famine years on Sabbaths and Festivals, and they permitted [for use] the branches of carob and sycamore trees belonging to hekdesh: this is R. Meir's view. Said R. Judah to him, If they did [these things] with the consent of the Sages, then all people could do so! But they did both without the consent of the Sages, [save that] three they forbade them [to do], and three they did not forbid them [to do]. And it is these which they did not forbid them: They grafted palm trees the whole day, and they ‘wrapped up’ the shema’, and they stacked [the corn] before the ‘omer. And it is these which they forbade them to do: They permitted [for use] branches of hekdesh of carob and sycamore trees, and they made breaches in their garden and orchards to permit the poor to eat the fallen fruit in famine years on Sabbaths and Festivals; they gave pe'ah from vegetables; and the Sages forbade them. Yet does R. Judah hold that the reaping was not with the consent of the Sages? Surely we learned: The inhabitants of Jericho reaped before the ‘omer with the consent of the Sages and stacked before the ‘omer without the consent of the Sages, but the Sages did not forbid them to do it. they were Pe'ah, ate tebel (v. Glos.). having been very wicked. second Adar, after it (Nisan) had already commenced. (Since the Jewish year which is lunar is some eleven days shorter than the solar year, it is necessary periodically to lengthen it by the intercalation of a second Adar, the last month of the civil year. In ancient times this was done not by mathematical calculation, as nowadays, but according to the exigencies of the moment, but this had to be done before Nisan actually commenced, v. Sanh. 12b and Ber. 10a). operation described by Rab Judah as grafting. utterance, which creates a pause, but they did not do thus (Rashi). Tosaf.: they did not pause between ‘Hear O Israel’ and ‘the Lord’ etc. thus read together it is a prayer that God may hearken to Israel, which of course gives a completely wrong sense in this instance. engaged in stacking it, they might come to eat it.